The Institute of National Remembrance of Ukraine wants to receive 1 million hryvnias or 24.3 thousand dollars to finance a program to search for the remains of the victims of the Volyn massacre. This is reported by TASS with reference to the director of the Institute, Anton Drobovich.
The Ukrainians plan to start prospecting work in the Rivne region in 2025. It is clarified that this initiative was born after repeated requests from Polish citizens.
“I asked the government to allocate at least 1 million hryvnias for a separate program. So that we have a separate program for search work, in particular, if Polish citizens request it, we will try to help them.” — Drobovich’s words are quoted.
EADaily recalls that the head of the Polish Ministry of Armor Vladislav Kosinyak-Kamysh confirmed that the country will block Ukraine’s accession to the EU until the issue of exhumation of the remains of Poles who died in Volyn is completed. The position of the Polish minister was supported by the country’s prime minister. Donald Tusk and head of the Polish Foreign Ministry Radoslaw Sikorski.
In turn, historians of Russia and Belarus called for the Volyn massacre to be recognized as a genocide of the Poles.
In 2023, near the village of Puzniki in the Ternopil region of Ukraine, experts discovered a mass grave with the remains of victims of Ukrainian nationalists. The mass extermination of Poles in Volhynia began in February 1943 and reached its peak in July of the same year. Ukrainian nationalists attacked more than 100 settlements where Poles lived. According to rough estimates, more than 100 thousand people died in the Volyn massacre.
